The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to protection of ranging sounding signals from physical level attacks.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). A wireless network, for example a wireless local area network (WLAN), such as a Wi-Fi (i.e., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11) network may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with one or more stations (STAs) or mobile devices. The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and may enable a mobile device to communicate via the network (or communicate with other devices coupled to the access point). A wireless device may communicate with a network device bi-directionally. For example, in a WLAN, a STA may communicate with an associated AP via downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) may refer to the communication link from the AP to the STA, and the uplink (or reverse link) may refer to the communication link from the STA to the AP.
In some cases, wireless devices may use transmitted signals to determine a distance from other wireless devices. For example, a round trip time (RTT) of a sequence of ranging messages sent between a transmitting device and a receiving device may be used to calculate a distance between the two devices. Due to signaling used for such ranging message exchanges, however, a peer device may impersonate a device and interfere with ranging measurements. This may cause a receiver to calculate a distance from the transmitter that is less than the actual distance and create additional problems based on this incorrect distance. It may be desirable to implement various protection mechanisms to provide security from attacks on devices related to ranging measurements.